Ahead of Bollywood debut in Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, Swastika accused of shoplifting

The female lead of Dibakar Banerjee’s upcoming film Detective Byomkesh Bakshi - Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee - is facing charges of shoplifting in Singapore. The owners of a boutique in the city have charged Mukherjee with shoplifting. She was in Singapore to attend a film festival and has gone to the boutique with her filmmaker, Suman Mukherjee and several other guests from Kolkata. According to a report in Mid-Day , the actress was the last customer seen with the $225 earrings in her hand, after which they disappeared from the store. The report adds that after the incident, the owner of the boutique Apsara Oswal wrote to the Darpan Film Festival authorities (which Mukherjee and her boyfriend were attending) alerting them about the theft. [caption id=“attachment_1788537” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Swastika Mukherjee in this photo. Image from her Twitter account.[/caption] The report also quotes Arindam Sil, executive producer of Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani who said that he has seen the footage. Sil told the paper, “The CCTV footage shows her (Mukherjee) purchasing an expensive neckpiece and then going back to the display shelves. She tried the earrings, took the pair in her left hand and shoved the empty box behind another box… She fled from her hotel on Monday morning along with her boyfriend.” The actress has told the founder of the film festival Sreyashi Sen, that “even though she is innocent she would pay for the ‘missing’ earrings.” According to a report on India Today, the actress said that she didn’t know how the earrings ended up in her bag. The actress is quoted as saying, “I don’t know how it got into my bag. Perhaps, it was by accident. But I bought jewellery from the store and have got receipts for other items.” Mukherjee is set to make her debut in Bollywood with Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshi which also stars Sushant Singh Rajput.